Saturday, December 22, 2012

People are murdered every day by guns in the US

After the horrible massacre at Newtown, I think we need to become aware of all the other people in the US who are murdered every day with guns.

According to the FBI reports for 2011, "firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults." In 2011 there were 14,612 "murders and non-negligent manslaughters," and the rate per 100,000 was 4.7. There were 653 justifiable homicides in 2011.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program "collects supplementary homicide data that provides information regarding the age, sex, and race of the murder victim and offender; the type of weapon used; the relationship of the victim to the offender; and the circumstance surrounding the incident."

The FBI figure for victims of murder for whom supplemental information is known is: 12,664. Of these, firearms were used in 8,583 of the murders (6,220 handguns), for a rate of about 67% of all murders.

Using the same figure of victims for whom supplemental information is known - victims of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in 2011 were disproportionately male - 77% of all victims were male. 50% of the victims were black, 46% were white.

Note that in the last 20 years, both the number of murders and the murder rate have gone down very significantly. In 1992 there 23,760 murders, and in 1993 there were 24,526 murders and the rate was 9.5. For the overall violent crime rate, the peak number of violent crimes was in 1992 - 1,932,274, for a rate of 757.7 per 100,000, while in 2011 it was 1,203,564, for a rate of 386.3 per 100,000.

December 16, 2012 - two police officers in Topeka, Kansas, were killed "after exchanging gunfire with a man." Their names were David Gogian and Jeff Atherly. The man suspected of killing them is David Edward Tiscareno.

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I teach at Ithaca College, do research on early Jewish magic and mysticism, visit Israel frequently, and enjoy the lovely Finger Lakes region of New York State. This is my personal blog, and the statements in it reflect only my own views, not those of Ithaca College.